The present invention relates to shaping of glass sheets to be laminated, and in particular relates to the simultaneous shaping of a pair of glass sheets by a combination of gravity sag bending, press bending and static air pressure.
The desire of automotive designers to have windshields with more complicated bends and deeper sags and the requirement that the windshield conform to a predetermined surface profile over its entire extent places demands on the glass fabricator to produce more difficult shaped glass parts with more stringent tolerances. Such complicated shapes are desired for vehicle styling purposes and are required to enable the shaped glass sheets to be mounted in a curved mounting frame forming part of an automobile body so that the curved glass forms a laminated window that merges with the shape of the curved mounting frame in the vehicle body in which it is mounted.
It would be advantageous to provide an arrangement for shaping glass sheets to such complicated shapes while minimizing marking of the glass sheets during the bending and shaping operation.